Someone asked if we check our email or social media sites first thing in the morning.  I have written about this before in other venues, but I thought, even from a business perspective, it would be wise to restate what I responded with here:

Social media is what I use to find contacts with whom I have things in common for social and commercial reasons.  Accordingly, I implore anyone with whom I’ve established direct contact to exclusively expect a timely reply via email.  I regret to say that I’ve resorted to a somewhat boilerplate response to people who continue to contact me on messaging systems.  I reply to them with a copy of what they sent me and demonstrate that they are a bona fide contact in my address book.  I have had the same domain, email address and phone number for 14 years and I intend to keep them for life, so that I’m easy to reach.  Of course email is universal and will survive any fad third-party sites, but the drawback is one does need to have a powerful filter.  I also use social media as a way to update my contacts, as many change their information without advising everyone.  It’s a reference for me, but not where I would go to reliably reach out to someone.  If a person these days doesn’t check his or her  email, I wonder how his or her bills get paid online.  To me email is more important than postal mail.  Sites like Facebook will always be like AOL and never allow forwarding to a real domain POP account, which I understand Gmail and Yahoo now do (not so sure about hotmail/Microsoft).